


from the flight of all thy ancestors

by Sinna



Series: Birds of a Feather [3]
Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Wingfic, spoilers for Underworld
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-22 20:08:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18534601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sinna/pseuds/Sinna
Summary: "Sometimes I wish I was more like you.”The journey to becoming Henry Green, and what comes after.





	from the flight of all thy ancestors

If anyone bothered to look under the mud and dirt and dust that coated Bharat Singh, they might guess his wings were some sort of brown. They would be right, but they wouldn’t anticipate the stunning golden shade, or the strength of the muscles beneath those ragged feathers.

Most of the laborers who worked on the underground tunnels had never left the ground. They’d grown up in crowded factories with no room to spread their wings, and now that they were adults they spent their lives in the equally crowded tunnels, digging in the dirt with only the rarest glimpse of the blue sky. Whether this was unintentional or by design was anyone’s guess, but Bharat himself was quite sure that the men who owned the factories didn’t dislike the idea that they made it impossible for the children they employed to learn to fly. Those who couldn’t fly, couldn’t escape.

Not that many attempted flight to escape. It took years of strengthening muscles and practicing in short leaps to build up the strength to support oneself in the air for more than a few seconds. Those who could truly fly were rare indeed, as even those who had the time and open space rarely bothered putting the effort into learning. There was no real need to fly in the modern world.

Luckily for Bharat Singh, Jayadeep Miir was one of those rare exceptions. The son of a prominent Indian Assassin, young Jayadeep was trained to fly as soon as he learned to walk, and he took to it like a natural bird. By age ten, he could fly short distances and climb to a height of nearly thirty feet. His tutor, Ethan Frye, would take him out beyond the city limits every morning, and the two would caper about in the air away from prying eyes. Those were the only times Jayadeep ever saw the man truly happy.

Jayadeep should have lived the rest of his life in the relative wealth and comfort of one brought up in the Brotherhood. He should have been a great Assassin, whose name would be whispered with fear among the Templar order. Instead, his own compassion ruined him.

And Jayadeep Miir died.

In his place, The Ghost was born, and The Ghost created the identity of Bharat Singh. And so, a grubby immigrant laborer held locked inside him the knowledge and skills of the boy who had been one of the most promising Assassins in all of India.

\--

Bharat Singh failed to, as did The Ghost, and from their ashes was born Henry Green – an unassuming curio shop keeper with a staggering number of contacts all across the city. He stopped bothering to dye his wings, and their true golden color slowly faded into view.

\--

He did not miss the irony when Ethan Frye’s children came to him, bright-eyed and eager and so ready to learn. Like their father, they loved to fly, and sometimes Henry thought Jacob especially spent more time in the air than out of it. He looked just like Ethan – except for his night-black wings. From what Henry had heard of Cecily Frye, the twins must have inherited her wings rather than the more traditional brown or white feathers of most Assassins.

Of the twins, though, Evie was the one who really reminded Henry of her father. Or rather, she was like what Henry imagined Ethan must have been like before he lost his wife. Smart as a whip, charming, and stubborn as the day was long. Obsessed with the first civilization artifacts. For a while he convinced himself that his fascination with the elder Frye twin was only that – an interest in the similarities she shared with his former mentor.

That and the fact that she was everything he was supposed to be. A brilliant assassin who never hesitated to do what needed to be done.

Therefore, it surprised him greatly when she said one day, seemingly out of the blue, “Sometimes I wish I was more like you.”

Henry blinked, unsure how to answer.

“Why?” he finally asked.

“I don’t feel anything,” she said softly. “When I kill someone, I don’t care. My father taught me to always respect life, and the weight of taking it, but I don’t think I do. I think...” her voice lowered so that he could barely hear her, “I think I would be able to kill an innocent if the mission depended on it.”

So much like her father...

Henry remembered the look in Ethan’s eyes when The Ghost had come to tell him that their plan to infiltrate the Templars would only succeed if The Ghost killed an innocent man. The steel in Ethan’s voice when he suggested using a blowpipe and said “ _You_ won’t have to.”

He thought of telling her about that, but hesitated. Evie idolized her father. Was it his place to take that away from her?

“Is it such a bad thing to be able to do anything for the sake of the mission?” he asked.

“If I start thinking like that, I don’t know what makes me any different from Lucy Thorne,” Evie confessed.

“We have to believe that if we follow the Creed, we will ultimately do good,” Henry said. “Trust me, Miss Frye, I would give anything to be rid of this weakness of mine. It’s not some sort of nobility. It’s a type of cowardice. Plenty of people would be better off if I hadn’t frozen up when I needed to make a kill.”

Evie nodded. “Understood.”

He hadn’t quite meant to make that into a lesson, but if it helped her...

\--

“I suppose I’m a coward, too,” Evie said, browsing the trinkets in his curio shop.

They’d barely spoken since the failed mission when she’d chosen saving Henry over securing the plans.

Even after she’d kissed him, there hadn’t been time to talk. They’d made it back to the train hideout in the silence of three exhausted people who had just finished something bigger than they’d ever imagined, and then she and Jacob had begun to talk – really talk – for what was perhaps the first time since their father’s death.

Henry had left them there and retreated back to his shop. It had been three days since then. He hadn’t dared to seek her out, in case she told him it had all been a mistake. He’d lived in an agony of hope and despair in the time until she walked through the door, the bell chiming merrily to announce her entrance. She didn’t look directly at him, but she was smiling softly.

Henry’s heart pounded in his chest, and he couldn’t help but hope. She didn’t look like someone about to break off a courtship that had never even started.

Thus, the first words out of her mouth caught him by surprise.

“Miss Frye?”

“I put your life before retrieving the plans,” she explained. “By your definition, that makes me a coward.”

“I could never think you a coward, Miss Frye.”

“Then you shouldn’t think yourself one.”

“And you shouldn’t think yourself heartless for being able to do what must be done. Your father would be proud of you. Ethan was a kind man, but he put the mission before anything else. Such things aren’t incompatible.”

Evie shook her head.

“I’m not so sure my father had it right. George always said he changed after my mother died, and I’m starting to think he made some mistakes.”

“He left you behind,” Henry reminded her, as if she might have forgotten.

“I don’t blame him for that,” she said. “I blame him for the way Jacob never feels like anything he does is enough. I blame him for the fact that I don't know how to handle my own emotions in any way besides pushing them away. I blame him for knowingly putting you at risk, without giving you a choice in the matter.”

“He told you about that?”

“I used to listen at the door of his study whenever he came back from a trip. I learned a lot. Not enough, it seems.”

Henry didn’t know what to say. Hesitantly, he reached out to touch her shoulder. After only a moment, she relaxed into the touch and reached out to fold a huge black wing around him.

“The Brotherhood needs people like you,” she said. “We need people who are kind above everything. People who keep people like me from falling too far into the darkness. I don’t have to worry that I’ll go too far. Not if you’re here beside me. So stop wishing you were someone else. I fell in love with you because of who you are, not in spite of it.”

Henry would have to unpack all that at some later date. Right now, he was entirely focused on that one little phrase - “fell in love.”

“I'd like to kiss you again,” he said finally.

She smiled. “I was hoping you'd say that.”


End file.
